Chapter I: History of the Art of Tapestry Weaving

The term tapestry is often applied to any hangings of mediæval workmanship whether woven on a frame or not. This use of the word is incorrect. Tapestry is a fabric woven with coloured wools on to warp threads in a loom or frame, in which the weft completely conceals the warp. It is woven all in one piece. This distinguishes it from embroidery or other needlework to which stitches are added after the groundwork of the fabric has been detached from the frame. The worker weaves directly from a design or cartoon which is supplied to him.

Tapestry frames are of two kinds. In the first the warp threads are arranged in a perpendicular frame, and the weaver sits before his work. This is known as high-warp (_haute lisse_) weaving, and is the method in use at the celebrated manufactory at Gobelins in France. In the other method the warp threads are stretched horizontally, and the weaver must bend over his work. This is known as low-warp (_basse lisse_) weaving, and is the process followed at Beauvais. On the whole the high warp weaving gives a fabric of firmer and finer texture.

The rest of the process is precisely similar. The weft threads of different colours, each attached to a separate bobbin or shuttle, are passed alternately behind and in front of the warp threads, leaving a little dot of colour behind. The second thread will, of course, take up the warp thread the first has passed over, and pass in front of that which the first one has passed behind. The two threads are then pushed together with a comb until they fall into one straight line. The warp is now completely concealed.

Tapestry weaving is an art that stands alone. Like furniture, tapestry was of utilitarian origin, and cannot, therefore, be judged by the standards applied to painting and the purely decorative arts. As originally used in ancient buildings, it was hung some feet from the walls to serve as a draught screen, or was suspended between pillars to shut off one apartment from another. It was generally hung, therefore, in undulating folds, the stiff panels and upholsteries of later workmanship being a spurious growth.

The decorative value of such hangings was, of course, seized on at once by the wealthy, who alone could afford them, and from the earliest times tapestries became things of beauty. But in estimating their artistic value we have to remember their original use. A tapestry curtain woven with a symmetrical central design would appear quite distorted when pushed aside by some one entering a room. Central unity, therefore, the great merit of painting, is in tapestry artistically bad. The designs that are most suitable are duplicated or repeated designs, with a crowded background. These will secure a certain uniformity in the suspended fabric. For this reason, therefore, such panels as Raphael’s _Acts of the Apostles_, though fine specimens of pictorial art, are, as tapestries, artistically faulty, beautiful though they are when considered merely as works of art.

Its first utilitarian purpose being fulfilled, tapestry becomes a decorative art designed only to please and rest the eye. Tragic subjects, therefore, such as the _Descent from the Cross_ and the _Passion of Our Lord_, are unsuitable, though they constantly tempted the mediæval _tapissier_. Much finer are those works that depict stirring historical scenes, the _Triumphs of Cæsar_ or the _Conquest of Tunis_, or those which deal with light mythological subjects with their pleasantly crowded backgrounds of fruit, flowers, and cupids. Dull and sombre colourings are also bad. The richest dyes, enriched with metallic threads of gold and silver, should glow against the background of the cold stone pillars. All these æsthetic rules, however, were constantly violated by the mediæval artificers, who could not rid themselves of the idea that art in any form should be didactic, and subserve the purposes of the Church and morality.

Tapestry weaving is certainly one of the most ancient of all the arts. Fragments have been left behind by all the early civilizations to bear witness to their skill. The art was practised by the early Egyptians, the Babylonians, Chinese, and Peruvians, while the Greeks and Romans brought it to a high state of perfection. It is noticeable that from the very beginning the texture of the fabric has scarcely altered, while the modern tapestry looms are but the natural development of the primitive frames used by the ancient Egyptians.

The earliest specimen of weaving that has been discovered was found in one of the Swiss lake dwellings, and can only be a relic of the later Stone Age. Fragments somewhat similar have come to light in stone coffins found in Yorkshire, while at Thornton, near Kolding, in Jutland, whole costumes have been discovered that must have belonged to the Age of Bronze.

The first historic references to the art come to us from early Egypt. Here the weavers were probably women. The Beni Hassan wall-paintings, which date from about 1600 B.C., depict weavers squatting at horizontal low-warp frames. There are three fragments of this early tapestry preserved in the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities at Cairo. Their uniformly fine workmanship proves that the weaving of tapestries had been carried to a high degree of excellence in the reign of Thothmes III. The texture of the fabric is very fine, and the pattern is identical on both sides. Some elasticity of pattern has been achieved by the occasional slackening of warp threads. This points to a loom where the threads were weighted, but not fastened to a cylinder.

A Greek vase found at Chiusi shows Penelope weaving at a high-warp frame while she holds her suitors at bay. This belongs to the fifth century B.C., and the loom depicted is very like those used in Scandinavian countries.

Catullus speaks of tapestries that showed the adventures of Theseus and Ariadne. The figures of Britons were constantly being reproduced in Roman tapestries. In Rome there were organized societies of weavers known as _collegii opificum_. The fabrics that have been preserved are woven in coloured woollens and linen threads. They show a wealth of floral and leaf adornment, and figures of ducks and fishes. One shows a child riding a white horse; another portrays Hermes with his caduceus. These date from the second or third centuries A.D.

The growth of Christianity, and the breaking up of Roman civilization, drove the art of tapestry weaving into monasteries and convents, or to the royal courts. It was not until the eleventh century that associations of free craftsmen--as against the early organizations of slaves--began to be formed in different countries. The movement started in England, Flanders, and Brabant, and afterwards spread to France, where this particular form of art was to find so congenial a home.

The Golden Age of mediæval tapestry opened, however, in the thirteenth century when Raphael began his cartoons. This introduction of realism, the widening of the whole artistic range, was rendered more feasible by the discovery of new dyes which added richer and more glowing tints to the fabrics. The borders, which had previously been simple, grew wider and more elaborate in design. From this ever-increasing elaboration of the borders, indeed, it is often possible to fix the date of an otherwise dubious specimen.

In the following century Arras became the centre of the industry. So closely was the tapestry associated with its place of manufacture that in England the name of the town became synonymous for the name of the fabric, and the arras became a recognized decoration of luxurious rooms. From early times there are references in Spanish inventories to _pan de raz_. This supremacy remained unchallenged until the fifteenth century when Brussels and Bruges achieved fame as tapestry centres. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the industry took root at Middleburg, Delft, and Paris, and Mortlake in England became a famous centre in the seventeenth century.

It was not until the late seventeenth century that tapestry weaving really became established in Spain. Before that the Spanish kings and nobles had been content to acquire masterpieces of foreign workmanship, chiefly from the Low Countries. There are, however, traces of a feeble industry to be found as far back as the late fourteenth century when one man seems to have followed the craft of _tapissier_ in Catalonia. It is possible--but not certain--that two _tapissiers_ of Navarre, who flourished about 1411--Llucia Barthomew and Juan Noyan--may have been Spaniards. Another Barthomew is spoken of a few years later in connexion with two tapestries, namely, those of the _Resurrection_ and _St. Anthony_.

A panel of Spanish tapestry, obviously intended for altar decoration, has recently been discovered that dates from the early fifteenth century. The centre is occupied by the figure of John the Baptist bearing the Paschal Lamb, flanked by St. Martin of Tours in the dress of a bishop, and by St. Hugh of Grenoble. Gold and silver threads are employed, and the arms are shown of Martin of Aragon and of his wife, Maria de Luna, who died in 1407. This king appears to have interested himself in tapestries, and we read that the walls of the royal palace at Saragossa were adorned with these costly fabrics at his coronation in 1398. King John of Aragon before him had introduced, we read in a document dated 1388, a company of “brobadors de Brabant.”

From the fifteenth century onward the costliest tapestries were much sought after in Spain, and magnificent displays were made on the occasions of State banquets or royal weddings. Towards the end of the fifteenth century a special official was appointed by the king to take charge of the royal collection, which was already considerable. This official, Pedro Entierrez by name, was himself a weaver. He made strenuous efforts to develop the industry in the Spanish capital, but apparently without much success. At any rate, a letter of his is preserved among the records of the Spanish Academy of History, in which he complains bitterly of the treatment meted out to himself and his fellow-workers. He was accused by his enemies of being ambitious, unskilled, and slow. These aspersions he proceeds very fully to refute. He complains that his supplies of raw material were limited, and that he was not allowed to set up his heavier instruments in Madrid.

It was not, however, until 1624 that the attempt to graft the weaving of tapestry on to Spanish art really succeeded. In this year a small colony of Flemish weavers settled in the little town of Pastran in New Castile, being directly subsidized by the king. Five thousand ducats were paid to them in the first year, and in the following year they received a further seven thousand ducats.

Meantime the unfortunate Pedro Entierrez had found a rival in a certain Antonio Ceron who had set up looms at Santa Isabel. Here he established four workshops, and instructed eight apprentices in the art of weaving tapestry. It is probably one of these ateliers that has been immortalized by Velazquez in _Las Hilanderas_. This painting shows in the background a tapestry of mythological inspiration, while in the foreground women are seen unwinding skeins of wool.

For some time the poverty of the Spanish Crown held the industry in check. But by 1720 a family of Spanish weavers from Antwerp, consisting of one Jacques Van der Goten and his four sons, came over on the invitation of Philip V and established an atelier in Madrid, where tapestry was produced on low-warp frames. A few years later high-warp looms were introduced from France, and the industry spread to Seville. Some famous pieces were wrought in Spain at this time. Jacques Van der Goten produced the _Virgin with the Pearl_ from a cartoon by Raphael, while the famous series representing the _Conquest of Tunis_, and the _History of Telemachus_, were reproduced by a well-known weaver called Andrea Procaccini. Cartoons were also designed by Procaccini for a “History of Don Quixote,” which have been constantly reproduced in tapestry.

The fashion changed, and for a time the demand was all for Dutch tapestries. Van der Goten set his workmen to copy the cartoons of Solimena Teniers and the other Dutch cartoonists. But at the same time original designs were not neglected, and by the end of the eighteenth century the industry had become quite considerable, employing permanently no less than fifteen workmen. The last of the Van der Goten brothers died in 1786, and the direction of the Santa Barbara atelier passed to a nephew.

The culmination of the prosperity of the Spanish _tapissiers_ was marked by the execution of the celebrated Goya tapestries. These cartoons, to the number of forty-five, were designed for the decoration of the apartments of the Prince of Asturias in the Prado. Some of them, however, are to be found on the walls of the Escorial, and many, unhappily, have been lost. Goya brought to his task his own peculiar talents. Hitherto the designers of cartoons had been content to find their inspiration in ancient Bible stories or in the myths of Greece or Rome. They had depicted incidents from the life of Christ and the Virgin Mary; they had painted moralities, virtues, and vices. Goya did none of these things. When he was summoned from Rome to Madrid by Raphael Mengs, then the director of the workrooms of the Spanish capital, he decided to portray in tapestry the actual life of the people around him. In place of the stilted, conventional figures of his predecessors he produced cartoons instinct with life and vivid movement. The enthralling realism of the bull-fight, village fairs and festivals, the romantic loves of Andalusian peasants, the popular excitement of kite-flying--these were the subjects treated by this most realistic of artists.

Goya achieved an immediate success. Time after time his cartoons were reproduced by the Spanish weavers. The King, pleased at the distinction with which the artist invested his Court, spent enormous sums upon tapestries, and encouraged his household to do the same. In the four years from 1776 to 1780 the sum of 817,956 _reales_ was expended at the Court on the purchase of tapestries and cartoons. Other well-known artists contributed cartoons to the Madrid workshops, among whom we find the names of Van Loo, Conrado, Giaquinto, Mengs, Jose de Castillo, Antonio Gonzalez, Mariano Nani, Andres Gines, Antonio Barbaza, and Jose de Salas.

The French invasion caused the closing down of the workshops of Santa Barbara in 1808. Some years later they were reopened by the son of St. Ferdinand’s weaver, and once again beautiful fabrics were woven from the designs of Goya. The death of Ferdinand VII in 1833 gave a severe blow to the industry, but there are still looms in Santa Barbara where exquisite tapestries are executed under the direction of a descendant of Jacques Van der Goten.